


Fracturing

by prosodiical



Category: Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 11:35:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12107877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prosodiical/pseuds/prosodiical
Summary: Naoki's friends are by his side. He'll just have to keep them there.





	Fracturing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Laylah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/gifts).



They spent the first night in a hospital room, the door superficially barred and Kagutsuchi waning in the sky. Naoki had dragged some hospital beds together for them, but once he laid down, he found he couldn't sleep; not the low-buzzing thoughts of insomnia but something he thought might now be innately part of him, like the way his blood burned when Kagutsuchi was full in the sky.

He swung his feet to the floor and went, silently, to the window overlooking the street. Isamu had found a room empty of lingering ghosts but Naoki could still hear them and the demons both, whispers of noise through the window, the echoes of footsteps outside their door. Kagutsuchi's cycle was faster than the sun used to pass across the sky and Naoki still wasn't quite used to its cold, hard light. He wondered if he'd ever be.

"Can't sleep?"

Naoki knew Isamu was there before he heard him, saw him; there was something about both his friends now that made his teeth itch. He lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug and Isamu looked at him for a moment, eyes half-mast, and while Naoki had often entertained thoughts about kissing him before he didn't think they'd ever had this violent, possessive edge, that made him want to leave teeth-marks on Isamu's vulnerable skin. He would ask his Pixie if he wasn't so certain she'd laugh at him.

"Yeah," Isamu said, "me neither. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?"

"Well, after today," Naoki said, and Isamu's mouth flattened as he looked out the window.

"It's gone, isn't it," he said, "our homes. Our lives. Our world."

Naoki pressed his tongue to his teeth and thought about what Yuko had said, and Hikawa, and that strange little boy and the vision of glowing light that was serving as their new moon. "It's the Conception," he said. "Rebirth."

Isamu shook his head, and tugged the brim of his hat further down, covering his eyes. "And who gets to remake it? Ms. Takao? That cult leader in the basement? Me, or Chiaki, or you?"

Naoki couldn't tell what he was thinking, with the odd, flat expression on his face. "If you had the chance... wouldn't you put everything back to the way it was?"

"...Yeah," Isamu said. "If we didn't die getting there."

"No one's dying," said Chiaki, from their combined beds. She was leaning on her side and pushed herself up to her elbows, her usually-straight hair starting to tangle at the ends. "You've got power now, don't you, Naoki?"

The first thing she'd said after Naoki had found her crouched behind the receptionist's desk in the hospital lobby, after her startled, _you're alive?_ was: _how did you kill those demons?_ Naoki had to wonder what she'd be like, with the strange new strength that ran in his veins. "I won't let you die," he said, and it came out harder than he wanted it to.

"Then," Chiaki said, "we get strong. We find out what we have to do, and we remake this world."

"As if it's that easy," Isamu said, and she looked at him, her eyes narrowed fractionally. "Would you choose to remake our world?"

"Would you?" she said.

Naoki glanced between them, Isamu's pale face and Chiaki's resolute expression. "It won't matter until the end," he said, "so - "

"Yeah," Isamu said, "whatever, right?"

The magatama squirmed uncomfortably in Naoki's stomach. He carefully laid a hand on Isamu's arm. "We'll work together on this."

Isamu met his gaze for a moment, studying him. Naoki didn't know what he looked like; he'd caught glimpses of himself in reflections off glass, could see the way he lit up dark rooms, and as Kagutsuchi turned new and the light faded from the room he was immediately conscious of the faint blue glow that lit up Isamu's face from below, the hollows of his cheeks shadowed dark. Isamu said, "You're right," after a moment too long, and Naoki heard Chiaki shift and sigh.

"Thank you," she said. "Now come back to bed."

Naoki went, because otherwise Isamu wouldn't, and perched on the side nearest the window until Isamu joined him. Chiaki said, musingly, "So an old lady and a kid turned you into a demon," and Naoki lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug.

"I don't know," he said. "Do I seem like one to you?"

"Hm," Chiaki said, and took his hand, examining the markings on it, before setting it at her vulnerable throat. She'd loosened the collar of her dress in her sleep, and Naoki's mouth went dry at her lifeblood - her life, wound in thick red strands that disappeared like a mirage when he blinked - under the skin beneath his fingers.

"Should I leave you two alone?" Isamu said dryly, and Chiaki's mouth quirked as she let Naoki's hand drop. 

It took all he had to not chase that feeling, to fill the now obvious hunger rumbling in his chest. "No," Naoki said. It came out hard, but he couldn't muster the usual remorse that would follow. "No. You'll stay here."

"You really are a demon," Isamu said, and despite the edge of amusement to his voice Naoki couldn't help the way the irritation burned beneath his skin. He found himself shoving Isamu back, his hands on Isamu's shoulders, power thrumming through his veins; just a bit, he thought, just a tiny -

"Hey," Chiaki said, "save the dick-measuring for later."

Isamu's pupils were large in the dark. Naoki pulled himself back, though it felt like he was shoving too much of himself into an ill-fitting skin. "Sorry," he managed, and Isamu let out a shaky, humorless laugh.

"Sure," he said. "It's true, isn't it?"

Naoki hunched his shoulders. Chiaki said, "If you can't see how he'll be helpful, Isamu - "

"If you'd stop being so calm about all this - "

"What would freaking out do?" Chiaki said, voice sharp. "It's done. We have to move on."

"By yourself?" Isamu said. "Without Naoki killing all those demons you'd be dead, just like everyone else."

Chiaki opened her mouth. Naoki said, frustrated, "Please. Stop."

They'd argued, before. Naoki remembered it now like he was looking through a tarnished mirror, the way their fights had been: not always good-natured, but with enough common ground they'd eventually come to a truce. Perhaps he'd been there, to drag Isamu away and play videogames until he cheered, or to study with Chiaki until her anger calmed. Perhaps he'd thought about kissing them, about pressing Isamu back to the bed in his tiny dorm room and taking what was his, of tasting the life from the curve of Chiaki's neck - or perhaps that was new. There were no more distractions, not anymore, but Naoki still stared them down until Isamu relented and Chiaki sighed.

"We'll look for Ms. Takao," she said.

Naoki said, pointedly, "Together."

"Yeah, sure," Isamu said. "I guess, if it had to be anyone..."

"And here I thought you liked us," Chiaki said, but she only briefly protested when Naoki settled in next to her, their shoulders bumping, his legs crossed on the bed, and when he pulled Isamu in, too, he got a look from both of them that didn't faze the heavy, possessive warmth of them close and flooded with life. "Ugh, Naoki."

"I'll keep you," he said. "You're mine."


End file.
